


Black Paladins in Snow

by LerxstInSpace



Series: Broken Mirror-verse [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam's Parents are Great, Alternate Reality Black Paladin Adam (Voltron), Flashbacks, Fluff and Humor, Homecoming, M/M, Minor Existential Angst, Shiro Got Better, Shiro's Parents are Not So Great, mentions of Shiro's illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 19:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17925218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LerxstInSpace/pseuds/LerxstInSpace
Summary: He had been captured by hostile aliens, experimented on and tortured and forced to fight for their amusement. He had traveled to the farthest reaches of the universe and piloted a ten thousand year old sentient alien spaceship. He had lost his team, his found family, his best friends, his home, his planet, his entire universe, everyone he ever loved, everything he’d ever known. He had suffered and bled and nearly died.He was a Garrison officer. A teacher. A pilot. Champion. A Paladin of Voltron. A hero, at least according to some people with cameras and microphones and comically oversized keys.But right now, none of that mattered.He was just Adam Wolf and he was home, sobbing in his parents’ arms.[In which Adam goes home to visit his parents, takes Shiro with him, has some moments of existential weirdness, and becomes a meme.]





	Black Paladins in Snow

The next time the _Atlas_ came home, Adam had a package waiting for him.

 

He looked at the little yellow slip in his snail mail box that told him so, and Takashi looked at it over his shoulder, and Adam knew they were both thinking the same thing.

 

And that thing was: yes. Hell yes. _Hell fucking yes._

 

The box was mostly full of snacks--savory stuff and licorice for Adam, some candy bars and some stuff from the Japanese grocery store for Takashi. And that was great, but really, the topping up of their snack stash wasn’t the best thing about this package. If Adam really just wanted a bag of all-dressed chips or whatever, he could just take out his phone or open up his laptop and place an order and have them show up in a couple of days.

 

No, the best thing about this box of goodies was that it served as another little reassurance that Adam really did belong in this reality.

 

Because sometimes that was an issue. Not all the time. Most of the time, he felt right at home on this side. But every once in a while he’d see or hear something that just wasn’t quite right--the name of a street or store or restaurant, a song lyric, a line in a favorite movie, something that was just a little _off_ from the way it was where he came from. It was jarring on a good day, and it tended to make an already bad day far worse.

 

But today was a good day. They’d won a hard-fought battle, they’d picked up some good intel, and then they came back safe again for at least a little while and found a really nice care package waiting for them. So it didn’t rattle Adam too much when he noticed a couple of brand names that weren’t quite what he was expecting in that package.

 

There was some other stuff in the box, too. Socks and underwear, because of course Mom had to send him socks and underwear. Some magazines and such. A little bundle of sage--maybe Adam wasn’t entirely sure he bought into the spiritual aspect of that, but he still associated the scent of gently smoldering sage with safety and comfort and after all of the shit he’d gone through, he could use all the safety and comfort he could get.

 

And then there were the letters and cards. From Mom, from Dad, from the weird hipster uncle with the farm out near Banff where he raised dairy goats and weed (and where he’d sheltered most of the family including Adam’s parents during the invasion so Adam couldn’t talk _too_ much shit about him anymore).

 

Takashi got his fair share of those too, at least from Adam’s parents and the aunts and uncles and cousins who’d met him and had been apprised of the situation with _his_ parents.

 

It was a great way to spend a first evening home from a mission--curled up on the couch with Takashi, going through the box munching on the snacks and reading all the cards and letters and stuff.

 

But there was one picture tucked in with Dad’s letter, one that reared back and decked Adam right in the feels. It was a panoramic photo of the backyard in the late evening, blanketed in thick snow that glowed various colors in places, lit from beneath by lights Dad installed in the yard for that exact purpose. There was a pond with a little waterfall that tumbled down a pile of smooth white rocks in the corner of the yard. The water was frozen solid and still in the photo, illuminated by more colored lights planted in the bottom of the pond and cleverly tucked into the cracks between the rocks in the waterfall. It looked magical. It looked like the kind of thing Adam would have expected to see on some peaceful ice planet somewhere, but at the same time... there was the tree he used to climb and the treehouse he used to play in, and there was the big flat rock next to the pond where he used to sit and dangle his feet in the water when it wasn’t frozen, and there was the birdbath encrusted with odd bits of broken china, some of it from thrift shops, some of it old family heirlooms that had met unfortunate ends.

 

That yard was one of Dad’s passions and it made Adam’s heart ache to look at it.

 

He must have spent a long time looking at it, or had some kind of look on his face, or some damn thing because Takashi leaned over and wrapped an arm tight around his shoulders.

 

“Wow. The yard looks great,” he said, and Adam nodded. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah.” Adam set the photo aside. That one needed framed and hung on the wall. “I just... ” He sighed and dropped his head onto Takashi’s shoulder. “I want to go home. I know we’re in the middle of a war but--even if it’s just for a day or two, I want to see them. I want to see home. It still doesn’t feel real, I still can’t believe they’re okay and it’s all still here and I just need to see it in person.”

 

Takashi thought that over for a minute. “I don’t see why we couldn’t go up for a couple days,” he finally said. “I’ll check with Iverson in the morning, far as I know there’s nothing else nasty on the horizon... I’ll see if we can take Black-2, that way if anything comes up we can just--”

 

One corner of Adam’s mouth tugged upward. “‘We,’ huh?”

 

“Well, yeah.” Takashi nuzzled the white hair at his temple and grinned. “I want to see your folks too, y’know.”

 

Yeah... Adam guessed he probably did, he probably hadn’t seen them in person since before the Kerberos mission. And they were the closest thing to actual family he had, at least as long as his own parents were being... well, like _that._

 

He also guessed Takashi was craving some of Mom’s cooking.

 

* * *

 

_He was twenty-five and sitting alone in alien snow._

 

_There was this ice planet they’d stopped on to check out a distress call. It was a minor thing and once they’d taken care of their business, Adam had to just take a few minutes to go out and appreciate the snow. He hadn’t seen snow since the last time he and Takashi went home. Since the day after they got married, a few short weeks before Takashi... no, not going to think about that right now._

 

_His armor kept him comfortable--maybe a little too comfortable, it wasn’t right to sit out here with his ass sinking into a foot of fresh snow without being at least a little chilly. But it was beautiful. Everything was soft and white and God, he wished Takashi could be here to see it with him._

 

_“Hey.”_

 

_Adam looked towards the sound of the voice and saw Keith gingerly sitting down next to him. Was this the first time he’d ever seen snow in person? ”You’ve been sitting out here for a while. Everything okay?”_

 

_“Yeah.” Adam laughed a little. “I just haven’t seen snow in forever, and, well... no telling when I’ll get to see it again so...”_

 

_“Eugh.” Keith shivered--probably not genuinely, on account of his armor keeping him just as comfortable. “I’ll take the desert any day. You can have this shit.”_

 

_Adam looked around for some sticks, some rocks, anything he might decorate a snowman with, and saw nothing but snow on the ground. Oh well, they probably needed to head back to the Castle soon anyw--_

 

_A sudden weak impact and soft crunchy-wet splat to the back of Adam’s helmet snapped him out of his contemplation of snowman construction._

 

_“Sorry, Adam!” Lance yelled somewhere behind them, “I was aiming at Keith!”_

 

_Keith rolled his eyes. Adam reached up and felt the back of his helmet, and came away with the remains of a misshapen clump of poorly packed snow. He turned around and focused his best Displeased Instructor Glare on Lance. “What the hell is this?” he demanded, pointing at the sad lump of snow, and Lance hung his head and shifted his weight from one foot to the other._

 

_“...snowball?” he mumbled. On his left, Hunk appeared to be bracing for an ass-chewing. On his right, Matt was busy pretending he didn’t know either of these nerds and trying really hard not to laugh at the same time._

 

_“No it’s not.” Adam tossed the clump of snow aside, stood up, and brushed snow off his ass. “That was a handful of snow.”_

 

_“Um.” Hunk gave him a look like a dog hearing a high-pitched noise. “That’s... all a snowball is, right?”_

 

 _Adam’s jaw dropped. Oh_ hell _no. “Have... have any of you ever seen snow in person? Anyone? Even once?”_

 

_Avoidance of eye contact all around--even from Keith. Shit, why was he even asking? Of course they hadn’t. Every single one of these kids came from a latitude where a single flake could shut down entire cities and spark mass hysteria and hoarding of bread, milk, and toilet paper. “Oh my God. All right. Get over here. All of you. On the double.”_

 

_Lance trudged over like he was expecting to be sentenced to latrine duty. Hunk and Matt trudged along behind him._

 

_“Gather ‘round and pay attention. Look.” Adam reached down and scooped up a big double handful of snow. “See this? You have to pack it so it doesn’t break up in the air...” He squeezed his handfuls of snow into a rough ball between his hands. “And you have to give it some mass. The lighter it is, the harder it is to aim. And then you have to smooth it out like this...” Oh, it was getting harder by the second to keep the devious glee off his face, especially now that they were all leaning in, watching intently as Adam carefully sculpted his ammunition, watching his cupped hands work all the bumps and divots out of it. “So it’s nice and aerodynamic, y’know. And then...”_

 

_Keith knew him way too well and could tell by the tone of his voice that some shit was about to go down, and out of the corner of his eye Adam saw him back up half a step._

 

_“And then,” Adam went on, “you throw it... like THIS!”_

 

_And with that, he pegged Lance right in the visor and ran like hell, cackling all the way._

 

_Lance stood there sputtering while Hunk and Matt lost every last bit of their shit and Keith, having wisely decided he’d prefer to be on the winning team, took off running after Adam. “Hey!” Lance finally yelled, bending down to scoop up a neat double handful of snow (and, Adam was proud to note, he was packing it into a proper snowball this time). “Are we gonna let him get away with that!?”_

 

_“No way.” Matt scooped up his own double handful of snow._

 

_Hunk followed suit--with a very, very large double handful. “Get him!”_

 

 _“Come at me, warm boys!” Adam taunted back. “You merely adopted the snow!_ I was born in it!”

 

_Three warm boys against one cybernetically enhanced Canadian and his warm-boy sidekick. It wasn’t even a fair fight. Not even close._

 

_But it was a hell of a lot of fun._

 

* * *

 

Adam got a call from Iverson later the next afternoon. Three whole days of leave for both him and Takashi: approved. Friday through Sunday. He was even fine with them taking Black-2. In fact, he _insisted_ they take Black-2. He’d already arranged the landing pad and a security detail with the fine folks at the Calgary airport. Not that Black-2 would need much in the way of security, it could handle itself just fine if the shit came down--the security detail was more to keep bystanders out of its way in case said shit came down and it decided to take off and go pick up its Paladin on its own.

 

He’d even seen to a rental car for the weekend. On the Garrison’s dime, no less.

 

“Go on,” Iverson said. “Have a good time. We’ll call if we need you.”

 

Adam hung up and sat there for a while pondering just how fishy this whole deal sounded.

 

Iverson just up and gave him and Takashi both three days of leave in the middle of a war. Without argument. Without complaint. Just “go on, we’ll call if we need you.” He’d gotten them set up with a place to park a Lion and a rental car to get around for the weekend, neither of which he really had to do.

 

Why would he do that? What was in it for _him?_

 

And then Adam decided he was probably reading too much into this. Sure, Iverson was kind of an asshole but he wasn’t heartless, right? He knew what Adam had been through in the last few weeks and knew it’d probably do him some good to see his family. Hell, he’d been responsible for some of what Adam had been through. Maybe he felt bad about that. Maybe this was his way of making up for it.

 

Or... there could be a string attached that he just hadn’t gotten around to telling them about yet.

 

Whatever. The important thing was, Adam and Takashi had a much-needed long weekend off ahead of them.

 

Takashi had gotten a similar call and also had some inkling that this was too good to be true, but he didn’t care too much. He was just thrilled at the prospect of getting a few days off and seeing Adam’s family again. Though he did think it was a little strange that Iverson actually wanted them to fly Black-2 up there.

 

Oh... and Iverson did ask that they arrive in uniform.

 

Weird. But not unreasonable, they were after all going to be showing up in a Lion of Voltron, there were probably going to be a few gawkers, and Adam guessed it wouldn’t do for them to come strolling out of Black-2’s mouth in jeans and jackets in front of them.

 

* * *

 

As the days leading up to a long weekend tend to do, the rest of the week dragged by at a near-glacial pace. Adam had training flights with the MFE pilots in the mornings and sometimes classes to teach in the afternoon, and that was about it. Honestly, he kind of wished some of those little wannabe space pirates they ran into on the way home would try and start some shit in the solar system, just to give them something to do that would be reasonably quick and easy to deal with.

 

But finally, Thursday rolled around, and then Thursday night rolled around in turn, and they packed their bags and hauled them down to the Lions’ hangar and stashed them in Black-2’s cargo hold.

 

Black-2 was a little curious as to why they were dropping off baggage in the cargo hold, and Adam explained that they were going to take a short trip in the morning. Just a little farther north on this planet, was all. No, not for a mission, just to visit family.

 

Adam caught an image of the Lions of this reality and the memory of the Lions of Adam’s reality when he said “family,” and he felt Black-2 send something like approval. Maybe a little amusement.

 

“Seems like Black-2’s looking forward to a mini-vacation too,” Takashi said. He could pick up bits of the wordless conversations Adam had with his Lion, just enough to get the gist.

 

“Hell, I don’t blame it.” Adam poked through his overnight bag one more time to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything vital. “It _deserves_ one.” He zipped up the bag and secured it. “Guess that’s it.”

 

Takashi nodded. He had that look on his face, like there was something he wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure how to put it.

 

“How much do you want to tell them?” he finally asked. “About... about what happened to you?”

 

Oh.

 

“Pretty sure that’s all classified,” Adam said.

 

“That’s not what I asked. If you want to--”

 

“I don’t.” Adam took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t want to tell them where I came from. I don’t want to tell them I watched Lotor destroy Earth and kill everyone on it including them. I don’t want to tell them I’m not really their--” He stopped himself and shook his head. “Look. They have the official story and that’s bad enough. We don’t need to tell them how much worse it really was.”

 

“Okay.” Takashi dropped his bag and swept Adam into his arms. “It’s okay.”

 

Adam settled into Takashi’s arms, took a deep breath, focused on the scent of Takashi’s aftershave, latched on to something familiar and safe as a lifeline to pull himself up out of that existential rabbit hole.

 

The official story was that he’d ejected when the Galra shot his fighter down, and they’d caught him and kept him captive on a prison ship that then left the solar system. That he’d been experimented on, much like Takashi had, thus explaining the arm. That he’d been freed by rebels and whisked away to some distant star system where they found an old Altean outpost hiding a prototype Black Lion that responded to him along with a matching suit of Paladin armor and a bayard, thus explaining the second Black Lion and the slight structural and functional differences between it and the other Black Lion and the minor cosmetic differences between Adam’s armor and that of the other Paladins. Iverson had figured the general public wasn’t ready to know about alternate realities yet. Takashi couldn’t argue with that, and neither could Adam.

 

Especially not now.

 

He did kind of feel bad about lying to his parents about this, but...

 

 _You listen to me, hon,_ Mom had said once. _Don’t you ever apologize to me for doing something kind for someone you care about._

 

“They’ve been through enough,” Adam said. “Let’s just let them have this.”

 

* * *

 

Bright and early the next morning, they were off. It was a quick trip in Black-2--even Black-2’s most casual cruising speed got them there in a fraction of the time flying commercial would have taken.

 

Adam exchanged pleasant chatter with the air traffic controller directing him to Black-2’s parking spot for the weekend, watching the ground as he cruised in. It had snowed overnight.

 

It had snowed a hell of a lot.

 

He guessed Iverson told them Black-2 would be fine in snow, because the bit of tarmac they were descending onto hadn’t been cleared of the stuff--at least not until Black-2’s thrusters took care of that.

 

That was when Adam noticed the vans clustered beyond the security cordon a safe distance away from their landing pad. Particularly the one with a CBC logo on the side of it. There were others, all with various TV station and news site and podcast logos and now people were starting to pour out of them, people with microphones and cameras and...

 

_Go on. Have a good time. Oh, and make sure you’re in uniform when you get there._

 

And there, Adam thought grimly, was Iverson’s little string. “We’ve got company.”

 

Takashi took a look at the ground. “What the hell? Who tipped the media off?”

 

“Three guesses,” Adam said through his teeth, “and the first two don’t count.”

 

A camdrone with a CityTV logo on its belly flitted up just close enough to Black-2’s face to freak it out a little; Adam felt it recoil just the tiniest bit and heard a little burst of bewildered static in his head. It didn’t seem to register the drone as a threat and that was good, but clearly Black-2 wasn’t sure it liked having this weird little thing this far up in its business. It sent Adam an image from his own memory--a mosquito buzzing around his face, one he couldn’t quite seem to swat.

 

 _It’s okay,_ Adam told it. _It’s just a camera. It just wants to look._ Black-2 seemed okay enough with that, if a little annoyed. _Give them a roar. They’ll love that. Or it’ll scare the hell out of them. Either way, it’ll be fun._

 

Black-2 seemed okay with either outcome, so it reared back and let loose with a mighty roar. The drone zipped away as if startled, coming to rest in the air outside the perimeter of the landing pad. Then Black-2 zoomed in on the crowd so Adam and Takashi could enjoy their reactions. Most of them were cheering, but a few of them had deer-in-headlights expressions on their faces and looked like they might have peed themselves a little.

 

_Good._

 

Out of the corner of his eye Adam saw Takashi take out his phone, scroll around a bit, and mash the “call” and “speaker” buttons as hard as he could without putting his thumb through the screen.

 

Iverson picked up before the end of the first ring. “Captain!” he said, in what for him was a terrifyingly pleasant tone. Son of a bitch, he’d been expecting this call. “How’s your leave going so far?”

 

“Did you or did you not,” Takashi grated out, “tell every damn news reporter in Canada about this?”

 

A long silence. Adam could _hear_ the slow grin spreading across Iverson’s face.

 

“All I did,” he said, “was let the mayor and the local media folks know one of their hometown heroes was coming up for a couple of days, and he’d be flying a Voltron Lion. That’s not something the average Joe sees every day, you know?”

 

Adam bared his teeth and concentrated on gently setting Black-2 on its little bit of tarmac.

 

“And besides,” Iverson went on, “it’s good PR for us. All you have to do is smile and wave and don’t tell them anything classified. Come on, Shirogane, you’ve done this before. You know how to deal with the press.”

 

Adam’s eye twitched.

 

“Adam is here to visit his damn family,” Takashi sighed. “Not to--look, we’re not going to be dodging reporters all weekend, are we?”

 

“Give me some credit here, huh? Of course not. I made it clear that once you leave the airport, they’re to leave you alone.”

 

Takashi rolled his eyes. Black-2 settled itself on the ground and Adam took this opportunity to let go of the sticks and extend both middle fingers towards the sound of Iverson’s voice. “All right. Fine. But you know, it would have been good to have some _warning_ about the press before we got here.”

 

“Hey, you two asked for leave in the middle of a war. You know I’m not gonna just hand that over without _some_ kind of string attached. Just do me a favor and don’t do anything embarrassing.”

 

That, Adam decided, sounded like a challenge.

 

He looked out at the snow banked deep around the perimeter of Black-2’s landing pad, and... well, he kind of had a silly urge to do the thing anyway but now? Oh, now he was _absolutely_ going to do the thing.

 

Takashi hung up and shoved his phone back in his pocket. “I can talk to the press if you just want to make a run for the shuttle--”

 

“I’m good,” Adam said.

 

Takashi definitely knew that tone of voice and he knew better than to argue with it, press for details, or try to talk Adam out of whatever it was he was about to do. Still, he had to try, just a little, and Adam couldn’t blame him. “Try to keep it broadcast-safe?”

 

“Perfectly broadcast-safe, don’t worry.”

 

They grabbed their bags out of the cargo hold and stepped out onto the tarmac.

 

The wind hit them and Takashi immediately looked like he wished he’d worn his combat suit or his own Paladin armor, or really any outfit with a built-in climate control system. His uniform and the standard-issue overcoat and gloves kept the worst of the wind off him, but that was about all they did and he clearly did not want to spend one second longer than he absolutely had to out here. The sooner they got through the media gauntlet and to their rental car, the better.

 

“Actually,” Adam said, gazing longingly upon the nice soft-looking pile of snow heaped up behind the throng of reporters, “I _would_ like you to talk to the press. Hold my bag.”

 

“What are you--Adam, no!”

 

“Adam _yes!”_

 

* * *

 

Of course Iverson didn’t think Shirogane and Wolf were going to deliberately embarrass themselves or the Garrison, but... well, he _knew_ them.

 

So he figured it would probably be a good idea to watch CBC’s live feed of the landing and whatever the hell they were going to say on camera, just to make sure.

 

The Lion sat itself down on the tarmac. A few minutes later, it lowered its head and opened its mouth, and out came--oh good, Shirogane was taking point, not that Iverson was terribly worried that Wolf was going to say anything untoward aside from maybe a few of the words you still couldn’t say on broadcast TV. But Wolf had been through some shit, and this wasn’t Shirogane’s first media rodeo, and if they’d decided to let _him_ do the talking and let Wolf stand there and look heroic, that was probably for the best.

 

And he _did_ look heroic, didn’t he?

 

Even Iverson had to admit, there was something about that Paladin armor that could make anyone look like a hero, but Wolf wore that shit _really_ well. He looked and walked and carried himself just like the hometown hero the reporters came to see, right up until the second he casually handed Shirogane his bag, hit his jetpack, sailed majestically over the mass of reporters...

 

...and bellyflopped into the deep bank of snow behind them.

 

* * *

 

Oh _God,_ he’d missed snow. Nice fresh clean white Earth snow. Snowball fights. Snow forts. Snowmen. Snow angels. Snow ice cream. Sitting in a nice warm house with a nice hot cup of coffee watching the snow come down. _Snow._ The snow was the best thing about this trip so far. Fucking with Iverson was a close second.

 

“Adam?” Takashi’s voice came through his helmet. “You, uh... you okay?”

 

“Mm-hmm,” Adam replied, and Black-2 did them the courtesy of relaying that so the reporters could hear it. Without moving any more than he had to, without removing any more parts of him than necessary from the snow, he raised one hand and gave a thumbs-up. “I just missed snow.”

 

The crowd loved it. Every reporter, every camera jockey, even the mayor laughed and clapped. Black-2 was even nice enough to patch its visual feed into Adam’s helmet so he could watch the reactions without having to remove his face from the snow.

 

 _Takashi is going to kill me for this,_ a little voice in the back of Adam’s mind said, and he waved it away. Worth it.

 

“What are you doing?” Takashi asked, trying to sound casual.

 

“Making a snow angel,” Adam said, and that got a fresh wave of laughter from the crowd.

 

“Uh... I thought you were supposed to do those on your back.”

 

“Don’t tell me how to live my life.”

 

Oh, the crowd _loved_ that one. “So,” Takashi said, and Adam could hear it in his voice--he was fighting like hell not to crack up right here in front of all these cameras. “I think we’ve got time for a couple of questions...”

 

* * *

 

Iverson sat there for a while, staring at the screen, watching Wolf making face-down snow angels and watching Shirogane try his damndest to keep a stiff upper lip while he talked to the reporters.

 

Surely Wolf didn’t actually just do that. Surely he didn’t actually just do that in front of reporters and the mayor of Calgary and God and everyone. Surely he didn’t just _faceplant into the snow on live TV._

 

No... no, he did do that. Of course he did that. But he hadn’t said anything he shouldn’t have and Shirogane was working the crowd like a champ and answering all their questions and giving all the right pre-approved official statements with just enough charm to take the canned taste out of them while Wolf just lay there face-down in the snow making happy noises and kicking his feet or waving his arms once in a while so they’d know he was still alive and the reporters were loving it, and... and...

 

And goddammit, those two smartasses knew _exactly_ what they were doing and Iverson wouldn’t be able to say a thing to them about this other than “hey, great job up there.”

 

He opened his desk drawer, considered the bottle of antacids therein, ate three of them, and decided he was going to need an even bigger bottle.

 

And definitely a bigger bottle of bourbon at home.

 

* * *

 

Honestly, Adam was having a great time, just lying there enjoying all this fresh hometown snow while Takashi answered questions and looked good on camera. But then Black-2 gave his mind a little nudge--the sound of Takashi’s teeth chattering, and some concern over whether humans were supposed to make that noise. Yeah... it was probably time for them to quit talking to the press out here and get inside. Oh, and apparently the mayor wanted to shake his hand and give him the key to the city or some shit.

 

He stood up and shook the snow off to cheers and applause, shook the mayor’s hand and let her give him a comically oversized brass key, smiled for the cameras for a while, and then wrapped an arm around Takashi’s shoulders. “Sorry,” he said to the crowd, “He’s a warm-weather boy, we need to get inside so he can thaw out.”

 

Adam’s slapstick and Takashi’s deft handling of the actual questions must have satisfied them, at least enough so that the sea of reporters and camerapeople parted to let the two of them through to the shuttle van waiting to take them to the terminal.

 

Takashi scrambled into the van, found the nearest heat vent, and cupped his hands over it. Adam almost said something to him about whether or not that right one really needed warmed up when it was made of magic space metal and could actually heat _itself_ up if he needed it to, and decided this wasn’t the time. Takashi’s cheeks and ears and nose were red, and it probably wasn’t just from the cold. “I can’t believe you did that!” he spluttered as Adam slid into the seat next to him and took off his helmet. “Iverson’s going to _kill_ us!”

 

“Did we say anything classified?”

 

“No, but--”

 

“Did I say the fuck word on live TV in front of Mayor Tran?”

 

“Well--no, but--”

 

“Did we give the reporters something interesting and fun to cover?”

 

“I guess, but--”

 

“Well.” Adam leaned back and smirked. “Then he can’t say shit, can he?”

 

Takashi opened his mouth to say something, but his phone pinged in his pocket. So did Adam’s, in his bag. It sounded like the notification for the Paladins’ group chat. Takashi pulled his out and took a look... and then he handed it to Adam.

 

“Congratulations,” Takashi sighed as Adam scrolled through and snickered at picture after picture of himself in full Black Paladin armor lying face down in the snow, sometimes with a thumbs-up, sometimes just sprawled out, all of them amusingly captioned, being spammed to the Paladins’ group chat as fast as Lance and Pidge could find new ones in the wild. “You’re already a meme.”

 

He was clearly trying to sound exasperated, but Adam knew perfectly well Takashi would have at least some of these things framed and sitting on his desk the minute they got back to the Garrison.

 

Adam figured he should probably stop somewhere and let Takashi get something hot to drink on the way to the house, though. Just to make up for making him stand out there in the cold and talk to all those reporters.

 

* * *

 

Adam was still in his armor and Takashi was still in his uniform, so the plan was to just go through the drive-thru and get Takashi a cup of coffee and maybe a donut. But when Adam saw the sign he had to actually pull into a parking spot, get out of the car, and stand there staring up at it for a minute just to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing.

 

It was almost right.

 

It was the exact same color, the exact same font, the exact same architecture, the exact same posters in the windows hawking the exact same stuff, the exact same everything.

 

Everything... everything but one single letter in the name of the place.

 

“Adam?” Takashi got out of the car and pulled his gloves back on. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah,” he finally said, shaking his head. “I’m fine. I just--God, that’s so fucking _weird.”_  

 

Well, now he knew why Takashi gave him that funny look when he offered to stop for some coffee and Tombits...

 

* * *

 

They almost went in, but just standing in the parking lot in full Paladin armor at the start of the lunch rush was attracting a little more attention than they really wanted at the moment. They got back in the car and went through the drive-thru after all, because Takashi hadn’t quite defrosted yet and the last damn thing Adam wanted was for them to get mobbed in the parking lot of a Tom--

 

Tim. _Tim_ Hortons. Ugh. That didn’t even sound right.

 

And the girl at the window still held Takashi’s coffee hostage until they let her take a selfie with them.

 

Once the coffee was safely in Takashi’s custody and on its way to his stomach, Adam figured they probably shouldn’t stop anywhere else until they could change into their civvies.

 

* * *

 

_They were twenty-four and they’d just gotten married yesterday and Adam was trying like hell to not think about this possibly being the last time they’d ever come up here together._

 

_“How much do you want to tell them?”_

 

_Takashi didn’t answer that for a while, he just sat there in the passenger seat watching the snow-covered lawns and shrubs and cars go by. He opened his mouth to answer once, bit off whatever he was going to say when the damn cuff went off, and had to take a second to gather his thoughts again._

 

_“Nothing,” he finally said. “There’s nothing they can do but worry. And I don’t want them to worry. Especially not right now. We just got married. They’re happy for us. Let’s just... let them have that.”_

 

 _Adam wasn’t sure he liked that plan. They were going to find out about the disease sooner or later, when that two or three years the doctor gave him ran out and... no, this wasn’t the time to think about that. But it_ was _why Takashi wanted the quick-and-simple honeymoon to their quick-and-simple wedding to be a trip up here. The plan was for him to resign after the Kerberos mission and just rest and enjoy whatever time he had left as much as he could, but... just one more time before he left. Just in case something went wrong out there, or in case there wasn’t enough time when he got back..._

 

_This wasn’t the time to think about that, either._

 

 _“Have you told_ your _parents?” Adam asked._

 

_“Why?” Takashi snorted. “I’m already dead to them.” As soon as it was out of his mouth he shook his head and reached over to pat Adam’s knee. “Sorry. That’s... maybe a little grimdark for honeymoon talk, huh?”_

 

 _“You_ think?” _Adam caught Takashi’s hand, stroking his thumb over the plain black titanium band on his ring finger. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have asked. Fuck them anyway.”_

 

_They drove in silence for a while, but Adam held Takashi’s hand on his knee._

 

_“So, uh...” Takashi snickered a little. “Think we could get away with fooling around in your treehouse?”_

 

 _“Oh,_ please.” _Adam rolled his eyes. “You bitched about the cold all the way to the car and you’re wearing like twelve layers. I’m sure you’re totally up for getting naked in a drafty old treehouse.”_

 

 _“Don’t have to get_ all _naked,” Takashi pointed out, and Adam reached across the seat to swat him on the shoulder._

 

* * *

 

For some reason the colder parts of the planet had been spared the worst of it, but there was no place on Earth that came through the Galra invasion completely unscathed, and Calgary had certainly taken a few hits. There were still some roads out, still some utility issues in some parts of town, still some iffy Net service and dead spots, still some destroyed and damaged buildings. Still a lot of closed businesses. Still a lot of people living in shelters.

 

Fortunately, Adam’s parents’ house came through mostly okay and they’d been able to move back in pretty much immediately after the Galra and that godawful Altean-powered Robeast had been sent packing. Some roof damage, some fence damage, some broken windows, some belongings missing, that was about it. The big tree in the front yard got knocked down, but fortunately it fell towards the street and not on the house and Dad had a chainsaw, and as Adam pulled the rental car into the driveway he could see slices of it leaning against the side of the house. He was probably planning on turning them into furniture.

 

He killed the engine and sat there for a while, hands still on the wheel.

 

He was not going to cry. He’d already been through this with that first call home, the one Takashi had to actually make for him, and he was not going to do all of that all over again.

 

Takashi reached over and laid a hand on his arm. “It’s okay,” he said. “Take your time.”

 

Well... with the engine off, the heater was off too, and Takashi couldn’t sit out here forever.

 

Adam unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door. A sign in the flowerbed caught his eye, one that he’d always thought of when he had a difficult student: _step carefully, there are seeds here and they are trying._ Either it had survived the invasion, or Mom had painted a new one and put it out here.

 

Focus. _Focus,_ dammit.

 

Adam got out of the car and just as his boots hit the ground, the front door of the house opened and there was Mom in a pink sweatshirt with a cartoon chicken on it and mom jeans and a puffy gray coat, flying down the three little concrete steps that led down from the front porch to sweep him into her arms. And there was Dad right behind her in a flannel shirt and double denim, with his long white-streaked ponytail trailing behind him as he sprinted down to catch them both in his.

 

He had been captured by hostile aliens, experimented on and tortured and forced to fight for their amusement. He had traveled to the farthest reaches of the universe and piloted a ten thousand year old sentient alien spaceship. He had lost his team, his found family, his best friends, his home, his planet, his entire universe, everyone he ever loved, everything he’d ever known. He had suffered and bled and nearly died.

 

He was a Garrison officer. A teacher. A pilot. Champion. A Paladin of Voltron. A hero, at least according to some people with cameras and microphones and comically oversized keys.

 

But right now, none of that mattered.

 

He was just Adam Wolf and he was home, sobbing in his parents’ arms.

 

* * *

 

Eventually they all remembered that poor Takashi was standing out there freezing and bringing him into the group hug only helped for so long, so they all went inside.

 

First things first. Adam needed to get out of his armor and Takashi needed to get out of his uniform and they both needed to get into some normal human person clothes. God, poor Mom, she must have felt like she was hugging a mannequin.

 

He let Takashi change first, though--they might have shared that one shower on the _Atlas_ the other day, but...

 

Well, a rushed joint shower in a combat zone was one thing, both of them getting naked in his room was another thing entirely and it was _not_ a good idea while they were still at least making an effort to take the physical stuff slow and also while his parents were directly downstairs.

 

Once Takashi came out in his human person clothes, Adam went into his old room to change and... this felt so familiar and at the same time it felt so fucking _weird._

 

Obviously his room was going to look different--between the invasion itself and survivors looking for necessities or valuables to trade for them before his parents moved back in, of course a lot of shit was going to be damaged or missing. But it smelled right, and the walls were the right color, and when he looked at the ceiling it was still painted the same dark blue and still had the same glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on it in the same constellations. The shelves that had housed all his books and video games and stuff were kind of bare, but the books that remained all looked familiar.

 

The double bed that replaced his bunk beds sometime in his and Takashi’s early twenties was still there. Uh oh. Was the guest room still a guest room? He’d need to ask about the sleeping arrangements. Takashi probably _would_ appreciate the extra warmth, but... no, no, best not to go there right now.

 

Just out of curiosity, Adam opened up the closet and felt around on the top shelf until his fingers brushed against cardboard.

 

So... he had one in this universe, too.

 

It was just a shoebox, and it looked mostly untouched. He pulled it down, set it on the desk, and took the lid off. It was full of what the casual observer would think was just junk--folded-up sheets of notebook paper and bottle caps and pretty rocks and shitty plastic toys of the sort you got out of a gumball machine. But to Adam this stuff was treasure.

 

He’d kept up the practice of tucking little mementoes into a shoebox after he left home, and now there was a new shoebox on the top shelf of his bedroom closet at the Garrison. That one was almost empty--he’d brought nothing with him from his own reality, nothing but his Lion, his armor, his bayard, and a black titanium ring he’d since left at the wall.

 

Adam picked through the box and took out a few choice pieces. A squished penny from the Calgary Tower, a tiny wolf carved out of soft red stone, a little plastic fighter jet. He tucked them into his pocket, then he put the box back in its place, finished changing his clothes, and headed downstairs.

 

* * *

 

_“Hey. Hold on a second.”_

 

_They were seventeen and it was their last winter break as cadets and there were a million and one other things they could have done and places they could have gone today. But no, Takashi wanted to go to the top of the damn Tower. Just because they’d never been, he said. Because it looked like fun, he said._

 

_It was an overpriced tourist trap and the food sucked, Adam said, and it had snowed like hell the night before and all they were going to see was white but he guessed he could take one for the team. Because... well, he hadn’t said this out loud yet, much less acted on it, but he was head over heels in love with this guy._

 

_But now Takashi was dicking around with one of those stupid penny squishers and... no. No. “Come on,” Adam groaned. “Really?”_

 

_“Really.” Takashi put his penny in, then he put in the couple of coins for the squishing fee, and then he turned the crank. There was a metallic clink, and he reached into the chute to claim his souvenir. And then he handed it to Adam. “For you.”_

 

_“Takashi, you don’t have to--” Adam sighed, but he tucked the squished penny into his pocket anyway.  “C’mon. Don’t waste your money on this.”_

 

 _“Well, technically, I wasted_ your _money on it. I still can’t believe you’ve been doing that all this time--”_

 

 _“Stop. It’s a few bucks a month out of my allowance and it’s not like I_ need _a lot of spending money at the academy.” And it was true. Adam didn’t have to pay any real living expenses there unless he was just that sick of the chow hall or wanted some civvies or some toiletries other than the plain shit the Garrison furnished him. His allowance was pretty much just pocket money for funsies. “And your parents haven’t given you jack shit since our first year. Look, we’ve been over this. You don’t have to pay me back. Just... think of it as a Christmas present, okay?”_

 

 _“I know. I know I don’t have to pay you back. I just_ want _to, is all.” Takashi stopped to look out over the snow-covered city, and Adam stopped next to him. Maybe a little closer than he needed to. Takashi didn’t seem to mind though, did he? If anything, he closed the gap even more. “I want to do something nice for you for once. After we graduate and, y’know... start getting paid... I want to take you out for dinner. Somewhere really fancy. And then a movie and maybe--”_

 

 _“You want to--” Adam felt his heart leap into his throat. Wait. Was he--did he really mean that? Did he mean it... like_ that!? _“Are you asking me out on a date?”_

 

_“Yeah. I just... yeah.” Was he blushing? Not that Adam had any room to talk, he could feel his own ears turning purple. “I mean, if that’s okay--”_

 

 _Okay?_ Okay!? _Adam had been hoping for this, dreaming about it, trying to work up the courage to ask Takashi out if_ he _didn’t make the first move soon and now Takashi was asking_ him _if it was okay? Hell yes, it was okay!_

 

 _That was what he wanted to say, but... “I’d--I’d really like that,” was what actually came out of his mouth. “Except I don’t want to wait until we graduate to go on a date with you.” Okay. Maybe this place was a tourist trap, but Adam had to admit... the view_ was _nice. Snow and all. So was the company, and--oh, what the hell. “So if you want to call_ this _our first date, I’m good with that.”_

 

_“Okay!” Takashi laughed and wrapped his arm around Adam’s waist, and Adam shut his eyes and laid his head on Takashi’s shoulder._

 

_It should have felt awkward, Adam thought, but it really didn’t. The sound of Takashi’s breath, the warmth of his body, the smell of his aftershave--it felt right. It felt like the most natural thing in the world._

 

_It felt a little less natural later on when they tried kissing. But even as teenage-clumsy as that was, it was still perfect._

 

* * *

 

Adam came back downstairs to the smell of fried stuff and the sound of lively conversation around the kitchen table. Takashi seemed a lot perkier now that he’d gotten into more comfortable clothes and gotten some more hot coffee in him, and especially now that Mom was loading the table down with platters and bowls of fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and buttered corn and warm yeast rolls and all the stuff Adam loved and Takashi went absolutely apeshit for.

 

“What can I help you with, Mom?” Adam asked her, and she waved him towards the table.

 

“You can plant your butt in a chair and load up a plate. And you can distract your father so Takashi can eat in peace. _A.J.!”_ She set the butter dish on the table and threw up her hands. “He’s freezing and starving! Let him eat, for heaven’s sake!”

 

“He’s just checking my arm out!” Takashi protested. “It’s fine!”

 

“Dad--” Adam slid into the chair next to Takashi and dug his phone out of his pocket. ”Did you see the video of Takashi breaking the gym? Here, watch this--”

 

Yep, _that_ got Dad’s attention. He reached for Adam’s phone. “No, lemme see--”

 

“Aw, c’mon! Don’t show him that, it’s embarrassing!” Takashi laughed, but he took advantage of the distraction to destroy a chicken leg anyway.

 

Dad’s eyebrows went up as he watched. “...half a ton!? Was that bar even rated for--”

 

“Wait for it,” Adam said. Takashi looked a little like he wanted to slide out of his chair and hide under the table.

 

And then Mom came to watch over Dad’s shoulder while she set some more food on the table. “Oh hon, you didn’t hurt yourself, did you--”

 

_“Wait for it...”_

 

And there was the Godawful twanging snapping noise, and the sound of gym bros losing their shit, and Dad cracked up while Mom just stood there with her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide, desperately trying not to laugh but losing the battle.

 

 _“Nice,”_ Dad said, handing Adam his phone back. Takashi just put another piece of chicken on his plate and turned red. “Hey, can yours do that?”

 

“Eeh...” Adam made a face. “Not quite, but I can put up a shield with mine.” He held up his left hand and wiggled his fingers. “And mine’s got a cooler paint job.”

 

“Ooh, nice,” Dad said, loading his plate down with more potatoes. “You gotta show me that shield later.”

 

“You bet. You’re gonna love my bayard, too.” Adam heaped some food on his plate before Takashi could inhale all of it. “Hey... didn’t you get a new dog? Where is he?”

 

“Oh, he’s out back,” Mom said. “Don’t worry, he’s got a heated doghouse. You can go out there after you eat, we just figured he needed to stay out ‘til he got all the, uh... _excitement_ out of his system.”

 

Come to think of it, Adam hadn’t seen the cat, either. Oh wait. There she was, a fat lump of gray and white fur and disdain perched on the back of the couch. “Does he have a name yet? ...does the cat?”

 

“We’ve been calling the dog ‘Dust Mop’ for now. The cat,” Mom started as she finally sat down and loaded her own plate, “has a temporary name we will not repeat at the table--”

 

“It’s ‘Shits-the-Bed,’” Dad interrupted. “She sleeps in the garage. Bet you can’t guess why.”

 

Takashi made a weird choking noise and clamped his hand over his mouth to keep from spraying chicken across the table, and Mom threw an oven mitt at Dad. And Adam just lost it.

 

Yep. These were really his parents, and he was really home.

 

* * *

 

After they ate, Adam went out to see the backyard in daylight--Takashi was content to look through the window, with another nice hot cup of coffee in his hands. Out of old habit, Adam considered gently suggesting decaf or tea or maybe hot chocolate for the rest of the day, but... no. The novelty of officially being able to drink real coffee without any ill effects hadn’t worn off yet and they were on leave. As far as Adam was concerned, Takashi could have all the coffee he damn well wanted right now.

 

As soon as Adam shut the back door Dust Mop stuck his head out of his nice warm doghouse and then... oh boy.

 

The dog--a short, squat little ball of energy and shaggy brown fur--did not _quite_ pee on everything in his wake as he ran around the yard in celebration of the arrival of a new human to sniff, but he peed on enough of it that Adam didn’t think it’d be a good idea to let him in the house to meet the other new human just yet.

 

He looked up at the treehouse. If he closed his eyes he could feel his body remembering the way up the tree. He was taller now, and stronger, and he could probably still get up there pretty easily. He almost tried it just for giggles, and then decided one of those branches that would have held him at fourteen looked a little too frail to hold him at twenty-six. He figured maybe he’d just jetpack up there later if he really wanted to see the inside of the treehouse again.

 

The pond wasn’t quite frozen over today, but there was a thin crust of ice over the shallow edges and the spray from the waterfall had frozen onto the smooth white rocks.

 

Adam bent down and scooped up a double handful of snow. Probably a good thing Takashi hadn’t come out with him, Adam didn’t think he’d be able to resist the temptation to bean him at least once--or just suplex him into the snow again. He packed his handfuls of snow into a neat ball and threw it across the yard. The dog, as dogs do when a human throws something ball-shaped, took off after it and looked very confused when the ball disintegrated on impact with the fence.

 

Back in the living room, the cat had parked herself in Takashi’s lap and she showed no sign of intent to move anytime soon. Mom was giving him the rundown of which places of interest were still shut down and which ones were open.

 

“...so the zoo’s still closed, they think they’ve rounded up all the animals that made a break for it but boy, that was a hot mess for a while. My friend Noreen--you remember her, hon?--she went out back to pick some veggies one morning and one of the darn _tigers_ was sleeping in her flowerbed...”

 

Yikes. Maybe they should avoid that whole area this time around.

 

“...and the Tower took some damage but it’s still there, they still light it up at night but they’re not letting anyone up to the top yet, so no point going _there...”_

 

Takashi caught Adam’s eye and smiled a little. Oh well.

 

“But most of the museums are back up and running, and the parks, and--oh hon? Did we tell you there’s a statue in Prince’s Island Park?”

 

“Um...” Adam looked at Takashi. Takashi shook his head. “A statue of...?”

 

“You,” Dad said.

 

Oh, _fuck._ It was hard enough seeing his own name and a face that was his but not quite on a memorial wall. But a statue that probably had a plaque on it whose wording started off with _in memory of..._

 

Adam shuddered a little at the thought. Couldn’t deal with that right now, nope, no way, no thank you.

 

“Not a great big one or anything, just a little one. And, well... personally...” Mom made that face she made when she wanted to say something she knew wasn’t nice and was trying to reframe it in the most pleasant possible way. “I don’t think it looks anything like you, but... it was nice of them. I guess if you really want we could go see it, but... eeh.”

 

“Maybe, uh...” Adam sat down on the couch next to Takashi and snuggled up close against his side. “Maybe tomorrow. Or next time we come up. I don’t know.” He let out a weak laugh and hid his face in Takashi’s shoulder. “Maybe never. Never sounds pretty good right now.”

 

“Hey.” Takashi wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah, I just--” Adam shook his head, face still buried in Takashi’s sweater. “No, Mom, you’re right, it’s nice of them. I just... can’t deal with that yet.”

 

“I know, hon. Just as well, like I said it’s... yeah.” Mom was quiet for a while, possibly thinking about other stuff they could see or do.

 

“There’s a powwow tomorrow,” Dad offered. “Just one of the little tiny ones at the Y, though.”

 

“Oh shit, really?” Okay, _that_ caught Adam’s interest, and Takashi’s too by the look of it. Adam was really not sure he was up to going to one of the big ones right now, but one of the small ones... “I could do that.” He held up a hand. “I’m not dancing.”

 

“Aw, c’mon. One of us has to and I don’t have anything to wear right now.”

 

“I’m not ready for that. And I don’t have anything to wear either.”

 

“We’ve still got some of your old stuff.”

 

Adam raised an eyebrow. _“How_ old?”

 

Dad was quiet for a while. “We’ll just tell everyone you hit a late growth spurt.”

 

 _“Dad!”_ Maybe Adam was still feeling a little weird after the whole statue thing, but Dad being his usual smartass self helped.

 

“It’s gonna be indoors, right?” Takashi asked in an unusually small voice, and that helped even more.

 

* * *

 

_They were fifteen and it was almost two in the morning and Adam couldn’t sleep. He could still feel the drum pounding in his chest and hear the singers echoing in his ears and the bells jingling on his ankles. He’d always been a little self-conscious about dancing, at least in the hours and minutes leading up to it--once he got out there the part of his brain that made him think he was going to look silly just sort of went offline and he was fine. But up to that point, even knowing Dad was going to be out there with him didn’t make it any easier._

 

_But this time, Takashi was watching. That should have made him even more nervous, he thought, dancing in front of his best friend who--if he was being honest--he kind of had a crush on. But strangely enough, it had the opposite effect. He wanted Takashi to see that part of him, he guessed. Just to see how he’d react. Just to see if he’d laugh or say something snotty or just... decide he didn’t want to hang out with Adam anymore._

 

_None of that happened. When they were done for the night and Dad and Adam came back to pack up their regalia, Takashi was just staring. Wide-eyed. Mouth half open. Clutching a folded blanket one of Mom’s friends must have forced on him. Like all of this was the coolest shit he’d ever seen in his life._

 

_All the way home, in the back seat of the car, Takashi asked him all kinds of questions about the dances themselves and the regalia and how he learned to do that and how long he’d been doing it and apologized for half of his questions being “dumb” which they really weren’t._

 

_And now Adam lay there in the top bunk watching snow slowly blanket the backyard in white, listening to Takashi’s slow even breathing from underneath him._

 

_He leaned over the edge of his bunk, hoping to steal a quick glance at Takashi’s face in the faint light from the backyard while he slept and..._

 

_Oh shit, he was awake._

 

_“Hey,” he said, and Adam felt his face heat up a few degrees. “You can’t sleep either, huh?”_

 

_“Nah.” Well, might as well go on down instead of lying here hanging over the edge of the bed like a weirdo. Adam climbed down and sat on the carpet beside the bed, and Takashi propped himself up on one elbow._

 

_“I figured you’d sleep like a log after all that dancing,” he said._

 

_Adam laughed softly. “I know, right? But it’s always like this afterwards. Like... my body wants to sleep but my brain’s still going a hundred miles an hour.”_

 

_“Kind of like when they give us one of those hell missions in the simulator and we ace it and we’re both all pumped for the rest of the day but at the same time we kinda just want to fall over and die?”_

 

_“Yeah.” Adam tried not to look too long or too intently at anything below Takashi’s chin, but now he could see Takashi had the blanket he’d been clutching spread out over the rest of the bedding, giving him one more warm layer. “Lemme guess. Noreen gave you the blanket.”_

 

_Takashi plucked at the fringed trim. “I think? I don’t know. A whole lot of your mom’s friends came over to talk to her and they just kept giving me stuff. Oh. Hey.” He pulled a hand out from under the layers of blankets and pointed at the chair by Adam’s desk. “Gimme my pants.”_

 

_Adam leaned back, grabbed the folded jeans, and handed them over, and Takashi went into one of the hip pockets. After some digging he came out with... well, what the hell was it?_

 

_Whatever it was, he handed it to Adam. “I think you should probably keep this.”_

 

 _It was pretty dark and Adam didn’t have his glasses on, but he could make out the form of a tiny four-legged something carved out of pipestone. “She gave it to_ you,” _he pointed out, and Takashi shook his head._

 

_“But it’s a wolf.” He grinned, and Adam felt his stomach go all warm and fluttery. “It’s you.”_

 

_“Well... okay. Thanks.” Adam sat there for a while, holding the little wolf in his curled hand, knees drawn up to his chest, trying to resist the urge to look at Takashi for too long._

 

_“Thanks for letting me come with you,” Takashi said. “That was really... it was really cool. Not just the actual dancing and stuff--well, that was pretty cool too but...” He was quiet for a minute. “It was really nice to learn a little more about... y’know. Where you come from.”_

 

_What the hell did Adam even say to something like that, coming from someone like Takashi?_

 

_He thought about it a while, turning the little stone wolf over in his fingers. “What part of Japan are you from?” he finally asked._

 

_Takashi fidgeted with the fringe on his blanket some more. He never talked much about home. “Osaka.”_

 

_“Is it nice?”_

 

_“I guess.” Takashi shrugged. “It’s... yeah. It is.”_

 

_Adam smiled up at him. “Would you take me someday?”_

 

_“I’m never going back. My parents won’t--”_

 

_“That’s not what I asked and also fuck your parents.”_

 

 _“Wh--” It couldn’t have been the first time Takashi ever heard Adam say the fuck word. He’d muttered it under his breath at least sixteen times during that last hell mission in the simulator, if nothing else. But it was the first time Takashi had heard Adam use it in that sentence out loud, and his jaw dropped._ “What!?”

 

 _“I said, quote,_ fuck your parents, _end quote. There are hotels there, right? Your parents don’t even have to know we’re there.”_

 

 _Takashi just stared at him like the thought of going back to Osaka and_ not _seeing his parents had never occurred to him. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe he was still that desperate for them to change their minds. Most of the time he acted like it didn’t bother him, but Adam knew better. He’d heard enough of those late-night phone calls to know better._

 

_He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop the first time--he’d had to pee at three in the morning and heard Takashi’s end of the call through the other bathroom door. He didn’t speak Japanese so he couldn’t tell exactly what they were talking about, but he could gather enough from the tone of Takashi’s voice to know the call wasn’t going the way he hoped it would. Adam could hear the strain in Takashi’s voice as he desperately fought to keep it low enough that he wouldn’t get written up for being on the phone after lights out and the longer the call went on, the harder he had to fight and the more Adam wanted to just break the damn door down and hug him._

 

 _“Takashi... you see how my parents treat me, right? Shit--you see how they treat_ you, _right? What your parents are doing to you is not normal. It’s not okay. It’s_ wrong. _You’re their son. They’re supposed to--”_

 

_“They’re just old-fashioned,” Takashi protested, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it._

 

 _“My_ grandparents _are old-fashioned,” Adam countered. “They know I like boys. You know what they think about that? They keep asking me when I’m going to bring that cute boy that comes home with me for winter and spring break up to the farm to meet them. Your parents aren’t old-fashioned, they’re_ assholes!”

 

_Takashi snuggled down under his layers of blankets and huffed out a sigh... and then he gave Adam a really weird look. “Wait. Your grandparents said I’m cute?”_

 

_...oh shit._

 

_“Wow. It’s, uh... really late. I’m going back to bed,” Adam said, trying like hell and mostly failing to sound casual as he scrambled back up to the top bunk. “‘Night!”_

 

 _“Hey!” came Takashi’s confused voice from beneath. “Did_ you _tell them I’m cute?”_

 

_“‘Night, Takashi!” Adam pulled the blanket up over his face, like that was going to keep it from turning purple._

 

* * *

 

“...oh, and a couple of those escape room places opened back up, and the movie theaters are showing some old stuff but other than that,” Mom said, “there’s not a lot of fun stuff to do around here right now.”

 

“Mom, honestly, I’m fine pretty much just hanging out here.” And that was the truth. All Adam really wanted out of this trip was to see his parents and his house and his hometown with his own eyes just so he could really believe they were really here and really okay.

 

“Hey, Judy?” Takashi asked. “Do you still have your 3D printer, or did you lose that in the...”

 

“Oh, both,” Mom replied. “It was gone when we moved back in, and I don’t blame whoever took it--they’re handy when the stuff comes down, I’m sure. But I built a new one a few weeks back.” Her eyes sparkled. She’d been dying to show it off this whole time, hadn’t she? “C’mon back and I’ll show you what I’m working on.”

 

The guest room was no longer a guest room--at least for now, Adam’s parents were using it as a sort of workshop.

 

Mom’s painting and sculpture stuff took up one corner, and there was a table for her laptop and 3D printer with what technical illustrations of the _Atlas_ the public got to see pinned on the wall over it, and bits of a homebrew model of it in progress laid out on the table.

 

“Oh, _nice!”_ Takashi scooted over to the table like a kid to the tree on Christmas morning and picked up a few of the bits. “And you modeled it yourself? Just off these?” He indicated the illustrations pinned to the wall. “That’s... wow. That’s really cool. I can’t wait to see the whole thing.”

 

“I’d like to try and light up the thrusters and such,” Mom said, “but the electronics shops are still kind of bare, they can’t keep stuff in stock even when they can get it, and even the thrift stores aren’t getting a whole lot of stuff in that I can cannibalize LEDs and whatnot out of.”

 

One of these days they’d have to introduce her to Pidge, Adam thought. They’d get on _great._ “Hey, when you’re done with the _Atlas,_ do my Lion.”

 

“Ooh... hon, you get me some 3D models or some good tech drawings and I’ll see but...” She waved a hand. “All those legs and tails and little fiddly bits, yeesh.”

 

Adam flashed her a grin. “Oh, I see how it is.”

 

Dad’s sewing and leather and bead stuff took up the opposite corner. It looked like he was working on some new regalia, and Adam made a mental note to keep an eye out for feathers and shiny things next time they were off in space. He didn’t see any of Dad’s ren faire stuff, though--other than a length of naked PVC pipe that looked to be about the right length for a quarterstaff. Well, that stuff was probably taking a backseat right now, but Adam was sure Dad had a length of rattan or closet rod or some such somewhere.

 

But, the former guest room being full of crafty stuff answered his question about sleeping arrangements. He and Takashi were going to be sharing that double bed in his room, unless one of them volunteered to take the living room couch. Adam didn’t want to, and like _hell_ was he going to ask Takashi to.

 

Well, that was fine. Maybe they weren’t doing that every night yet, but they _had_ shared a bed a few times and it was fine, they were adults, they’d set their boundaries for the time being and they could respect those boundaries. And the beds they’d shared were a lot smaller than the one in his room. It would have been kind of hilarious if his old bunk beds had still been in there, though.

 

* * *

 

They finally lured Takashi outside for a little while. Dad wanted to see all the neat stuff their arms and Adam’s bayard could do, and Mom’s reaction was exactly what any mom’s reaction to potential horseplay would be-- _not in the house!_

 

And Dad’s reenactment group still wasn’t meeting regularly yet, so he was itching for a little combat. “Takashi should go first,” Adam said with a devious little grin. “He still can’t beat me with a quarterstaff.”

 

“Yeah, in case you forgot--I don’t _need_ one anymore.” Takashi wiggled his floaty fingers and grinned back. But he caught the length of rattan Dad tossed him anyway, and Adam sat on the roof of the doghouse to keep his butt warm while he watched them go at it.

 

Dad went easy on Takashi at first, but it didn’t take him long to realize what an arm that wasn’t physically attached to the rest of its owner’s body could do. Takashi was an amazing fighter even without a weapon, but the range that arm gave him was _wild._ It wasn’t enough to keep Dad from handing him his ass in a friendly sparring match, though. If they’d been equipped for full contact, that might have been another story, but... not today.

 

“Your turn,” Takashi panted, brushing snow off his butt and parking it on the roof of the doghouse next to Adam.

 

Adam shrugged and called his bayard. It came as the staff first, as it usually did, and Dad whistled. “Don’t touch the glowy bits on the ends,” Adam warned as Dad checked it out. “In fact--” The stun pads went dark. “There we go.”

 

“That’s badass,” Dad said. “You said it’s a sword too?”

 

“Can be.” Adam closed his eyes and concentrated, and his bayard changed. “I am not fighting you with this thing, Mom will murder me.”

 

“Aw, and I was thinking about trying sword-n-board sometime...”

 

Ah yes, the “board” part. Adam called up his new and improved shield, and Dad took a big step backwards.

 

“Now that’s _really_ badass,” Dad said. “Can you change the shape?”

 

“Yeah.” Adam thought about how he’d used it to save himself and Lance on that boobytrapped hell moon, but right now he couldn’t seem to dig deep enough to make that happen again. He could change it enough to impress Dad, at least. “It’s Altean tech, it kind of evolves. I’m still getting used to it so... no idea what all it can really do yet.”

 

Dust Mop stuck his head out the doghouse door, noticed Takashi sitting on the roof of his house, and started dancing in circles around it until he dangled his gloved hand down into sniffing range. God, how could such a tiny dog contain that much pee? “Yeah, mine’s surprised me a couple times too.”

 

Adam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. _His_ arm lets him turn the whole-ass _Atlas_ into a giant robot. Showoff.”

 

Takashi huffed out a little wounded noise. “Why do you have to steal my thunder like that?”

 

* * *

 

_They were fourteen and all Adam could think about for the whole week before they got on the plane was a hamburger steak and garlic toast from that hole in the wall diner his parents used to take him to, and Adam begged them to please just take them straight from the airport._

 

_It wasn’t much to look at on the outside, and the inside wasn’t much better but God, the food was amazing. It was all probably about thirty percent bacon grease--even the salad. But it was hot and delicious and tasted like home--at least, what “home” tasted like when Mom and Dad didn’t feel like cooking._

 

_Takashi wasn’t sure about the place at first, but he took one bite of his cheeseburger and Adam could practically hear the Hallelujah Chorus playing in his head from across the table._

 

_And the pie. Oh man, the pie. Adam didn’t even like sweets that much and he missed that flapper pie. It was a layer of custard topped with about a three-foot thick pillow of meringue on top and he loved it._

 

_They ate lunch and watched the gentle snow outside, watched it build up on cars and shrubs like the meringue on that pie, and talked about what Adam and Takashi had been up to at the academy and what Adam’s family had been doing up here since the last time they’d come up._

 

_On the way out, Takashi stopped and bent down to pick something up. Someone had dropped a quarter and that was, for the time being, all the Canadian money Takashi had to his name. Adam was just about to gently nudge Mom about that Christmas card when Takashi turned around, put that quarter in a machine that dispensed crummy plastic toys, and turned the knob._

 

 _“Really?” Adam teased, and Takashi ignored him. There was a little_ plunk _and Takashi reached into the chute. He pulled out a little plastic capsule, popped it open, and grinned at its contents._

 

_“Here,” he said, handing Adam a tiny plastic fighter jet. “Stick to flying this one.”_

 

_“Excuse you? I beat your score on the Phobos landing last week?”_

 

_“Uh huh. And how many tries did that take?”_

 

 _“Not as many as it took you to beat_ me _at quarterstaff sparring, smartass--”_

 

“Boys,” _Mom said in that mild but ominous tone moms used when their kids were straying perilously close to the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior in public. Dad had that look on his face, the one he got when he was kind of proud of Adam but didn’t want to explicitly encourage whatever he was saying or doing. Takashi snickered and elbowed Adam in the arm. Adam laughed and elbowed him back._

 

_They behaved themselves all the way home. Mostly._

 

_When they got home Mom discreetly handed Takashi a Christmas card that contained a bit of spending money for the week. Takashi thought it was a Christmas present from Adam’s parents, and Adam let him think that._

 

_And as soon as they got their bags put away, out into the backyard they went for the rest of the afternoon. Takashi had seen snow before, he’d said so last year, but not the kind they got in Calgary. Not the kind you could build a snowman in and make a fort out of and sled on and..._

 

 _And suplex your training partner and best friend into. Or let him suplex_ you _i_ _nto._

 

_When they got tired of pelting each other with snowballs and wrestling in the snow, they climbed up into the treehouse. They’d grown since they’d last been up here, and the ceiling felt lower than Adam remembered it. But it was still big enough for both of them and there were comic books to read and it kept the wind off them._

 

_“Thanks for letting me come up with you again,” Takashi said at some point. “I was really hoping you would.”_

 

_“You can keep coming with me every year,” Adam replied. “Spring break too, if you want. Mom and Dad already said. As long as your parents are being stupid--”_

 

_“They’re not being stupid!”_

 

 _“Yes they are. They’re being pants-on-head_ stupid. _And until they stop being stupid, you can keep coming home with me as long as you want to.”_

 

_Takashi opened his mouth like he wanted to say something to that. Adam had a pretty good idea what it was--it wouldn’t be the first time Takashi said it, and and Adam was ready to fight him on it again, today and tomorrow and as many times as it took to get it through his head that his parents were wrong and he didn’t owe them anything--but it didn’t come out. “I don’t want to talk about my parents,” Takashi huffed instead._

 

_“Okay.” Adam passed him another comic book. “What do you want to talk about?”_

 

_Takashi thought about that for a minute._

 

_“I can’t feel my butt,” he finally said, and Adam fell over laughing. “I’m serious. I think I have frostbite.”_

 

 _“More like frost_ butt,” _Adam corrected, and they both cracked up._

 

 _Well, it_ was _getting dark and starting to get a little chilly even for Adam. And besides, dinner was probably going to be ready soon. So they climbed back down and headed inside, to the smell of fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and buttered corn and yeast rolls, to warm dry clothes and hot cocoa and video games in Adam’s room._

 

* * *

 

One of the minor reasons for this visit was in the garage. And when Takashi started making grumpy noises about the cold again despite having his ass parked on the warm roof of a heated doghouse, Adam wrapped up his sparring session with Dad and they went back inside to deal with that.

 

Adam was still way too tempted to shove a snowball down the back of Takashi’s pants. Not today. Maybe not this trip. But it would happen. Someday.

 

In the garage, there sat a pile of boxes. They hadn’t been opened since they arrived, and they all had shipping labels with a return address at the Garrison.

 

“You sure you want to do this right now?” Takashi asked him as he sat down with a box cutter and pulled a box over.

 

“I’d rather go through it now and just... go ahead and donate what I don’t want here instead of dragging it back with us.” Adam looked up at him. “Are _you_ okay with being in here while I do this?”

 

Takashi let out a nervous laugh. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

 

Adam sliced through the tape and opened up the box.

 

He recognized everything in the first one. It was mostly books, some of which he wanted to keep and some of which he’d either already replaced or didn’t care that much about.

 

There were a couple of things wrapped in bubble wrap. A couple of fragile knickknacks, a couple of coffee mugs--

 

Adam wasn’t sure who noticed it first, but Takashi sputtered out a laugh when he unwrapped one of the mugs. “Holy shit,” he said. Adam laughed too, because he’d been wondering what became of this thing ever since that day he rode backseat with Griffin.

 

It was a plain white ceramic mug and on one side, in a font that was entirely too cheerful, it said simply: _cadet tears._

 

“Oh _hell_ yes,” Adam said with a grin as he wrapped the mug back up and set it in the _keep_ box.

 

The next box was mostly clothing. Most of it looked familiar. The pants might fit, he’d try them on later. The shirts probably wouldn’t--Adam had some muscle mass his counterpart in this reality hadn’t. Takashi gave him a sly grin and a borderline inappropriate comment about keeping a few for wearing in private, but they went in the _donate_ box anyway.

 

There were a few small kitchen appliances they both knew he really wasn’t supposed to have in the dorm, but whoever cleaned his room out apparently didn’t give enough of a shit to confiscate them. Adam maintained firm eye contact with Takashi while he put an air fryer and a small waffle iron in the _keep_ box, playfully daring him to say something, and Takashi just shook his head. Adam knew perfectly well Takashi wasn’t going to write him up--he responded far too well to bribery in the form of home-cooked dinners. Even Iverson had long since learned to pick his battles and wouldn’t do more than roll his eyes and sigh and deliver the usual halfhearted lecture about appliances in the dorm.

 

There was a small TV and audio system, both of which he’d already replaced and neither of which he really needed another of. There was a small keyboard that looked okay but wouldn’t turn on. Maybe Mom could fix it if it didn’t need any components replaced, otherwise Pidge or Hunk probably could. There was an acoustic guitar that seemed to be in pretty decent shape, so he leaned it up against the _keep_ box too.

 

The last box was the hard one, because right on top was the shoebox.

 

_Fuck._

 

Takashi recognized it right away, and he laid a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Maybe... don’t open that right now,” he suggested, and Adam thought about it.

 

If he opened that thing up and there was stuff in it he didn’t recognize... or if something he expected to see wasn’t there... the shoebox in his bedroom closet seemed to have all the right stuff in it, sure. But this was a much more recent version of it, one that contained the memories of a version of himself who had made at least one drastically different life decision, and he wasn’t sure that was something he wanted to explore while they sat on the floor of his parents’ garage.

 

In the end, he put the unopened shoebox in the _keep_ pile. Maybe he’d just take the whole damn thing to his next appointment with the therapist.

 

* * *

 

“Ooh, no.” Mom frowned over the exposed innards of the keyboard a while later while it sat on her workbench. “The mainboard’s toast. I _might_ be able to kludge a new one together long as none of the other important bits are busted but it’ll take some time...”

 

“Huh,” Adam said. “I must have been hanging onto it to see if you could fix it...” He saw Mom giving him kind of a weird look over her shoulder and shook his head. “My memory’s still kind of wonky,” he said and, well... that much was true. “From the, uh... y’know. Don’t worry about the keyboard.” Adam rubbed her shoulders, partly as a distraction. “Go ahead and scavenge whatever you want to scavenge out of it. Hey, at least now you’ve got some LEDs for your _Atlas.”_

 

“Aw, hon.” Mom turned her work light off and put her diagnostic doodads away. “Maybe by the time your birthday rolls around the music stores’ll be back up to speed, we’ll get you a new one.”

 

Didn’t he have another one? A fancier one, maybe in his studio? What would have happened to that stuff in this reality? Did he even _have_ that stuff in this reality?

 

He shook his head, as if to clear it. “Speaking of... what happened to the piano?”

 

“Gone when we got back,” Mom said as she got up. “Isn’t that just the weirdest thing? Honest to goodness alien invasion going on and what does some nut decide to rip off? A _piano,_ for heaven’s sake! I could maybe see it if it’d been an electronic one, but...” Yeah. The 3D printer Adam could understand, but... the _piano!?_ Well, there was still a lot of salvageable material in an old-fashioned acoustic piano, right? Wood and steel and wire and such? Maybe not the easiest to recover, but... well, whatever. “Have you been playing at all since you got back, or...?”

 

“Nah.” Adam shook his head and stared at his left hand. “No piano to play. Besides, I haven’t really been feeling it and... I’m not sure I can anymore anyway.”

 

“Oh, hon. It’ll come back to you. Don’t worry.” Mom took that hand in both of hers, like she didn’t even care that it was made of metal. Maybe she really didn’t. And that helped. That helped more than she could ever possibly know. “And if it doesn’t... we’ll just fly Mrs. Schrieber down to give you a refresher lesson or two.”

 

And that... that didn’t help. “She’s still alive!?” Adam sputtered, and he could practically _hear_ the color drain from his face. She had to be in her seventies when she taught Adam, and that would have been before he went into the academy, and...

 

“Oh yes,” Mom said, her eyes twinkling. “And she’s still teaching.”

 

 _“Oh God!”_ Of course. Of course his terrifying piano teacher was still alive, it’d take more than a global invasion by hostile aliens with a ten thousand year technological head start to kill _that_ old battleaxe... and, well, to be perfectly honest, it _was_ kind of a relief to hear that she was still on the green side of the grass.

 

Not so much of a relief to hear that she was still giving piano lessons, though. _Yikes._

 

They went back into the living room and found Dad in there tuning Adam’s guitar. It had been pretty dusty and it probably really needed new strings after sitting untouched for so long, but it sounded okay.

 

Adam sat down next to Takashi on the couch, and Dad handed the guitar over. “Think that’s about the best I can do with it,” he said, and Adam gave it a try, half afraid he was going to snap the damn thing’s neck off.

 

Before Pidge and Allura fixed it up his hand didn’t feel much other than a constant dull ache, but it sort of registered pressure and friction in that he could tell when he was touching something and when he wasn’t. After its Altean-tech overhaul, though, Adam could feel the strings under his fingertips. He could tell how hard he was pressing them down, and he could even feel the vibration. And unlike the hand he was born with, this one didn’t cramp up when he tried to hit the more awkward chords. Plus, he didn’t have to worry about toughening his fingertips up again.

 

He didn’t play anything specific, he just sort of absentmindedly noodled around while they all talked and watched TV. Dad took his own guitar out of the hall closet and played along with him, improvising little riffs off the chords Adam played and then letting Adam take the lead for a while, just like they used to.

 

Exactly like they used to.

 

It felt the way Mom holding his metal hand felt. Like finding those three little trinkets in his shoebox felt. Like remembering the way up to his treehouse felt. Like one of those amazing hugs Takashi gave him after a mission felt.

 

It felt like home.

 

Adam knew this wasn’t going to be the end of his occasional bouts of cognitive dissonance and existential weirdness when he ran across something that wasn’t quite the same on this side as it was on his. But Takashi was still Takashi, and his parents were still his parents, and--

 

...shit. They were replaying the landing on the evening news.

 

Oh shit, the coverage now included a few choice examples of the Black Paladin Face Down In Snow meme.

 

“Heh. We gotta keep this.”

 

Oh _shit,_ Dad was picking up the remote and--

 

“Dad, no!”

 

“Dad _yes,”_ he said, and he hit the “record” button.

 

* * *

 

_They were thirteen and they’d just finished their last day of classes before their first winter break, and in two days Adam was going to get on a plane and go home for a whole week. He loved the academy, he really did, he was having a great time here but he couldn’t wait to spend a whole week wearing whatever he wanted and eating anything but chow hall food and staying up late and sleeping late and he really couldn’t wait to play in the snow again, God, he was so done with this desert crap._

 

_Oh, he guessed he wanted to see his parents and stuff too._

 

_But he wanted to hang out with Takashi for a while before he left. The kid they’d partnered him up with turned out to be really cool, and more often than not they ended up eating together and studying in the library together and spending ridiculous amounts of their free time together just hanging out and talking and... yeah. Adam liked him._

 

_So he knocked on the other door in the bathroom their two rooms shared._

 

_The door unlocked and opened. “Hey,” Takashi said, waving Adam into his room, and right away Adam got the feeling that something wasn’t right._

 

_For one thing... Takashi never looked that glum. Ever._

 

 _For another... he hadn’t packed a single thing. There wasn’t any sign that he was_ going _to pack a single thing. He had a textbook open on his tablet, for crying out loud._

 

_“Hey,” Adam said back, trying to act like he hadn’t noticed. “You going home for break?”_

 

_Takashi didn’t answer that for a long time._

 

_“Nah,” he finally said, pasting on a smile that Adam could tell instantly was fake and for his benefit. “I’m gonna stay. Catch up on some stuff, y’know.”_

 

 _“Catch up on_ what _stuff!?” Adam pulled a face. “You’re at the top of the class!”_

 

_Takashi shrugged. “Extra credit.”_

 

_Nope. Not buying this. “You’re a really crappy liar, you know that? C’mon. What’s wrong?”_

 

 _Takashi didn’t answer_ that _for a long time either. “It’s nothing,” he said, sitting on his bed. “Don’t worry about it.”_

 

 _“Too late. I’m worried about it.” Adam sat next to him. “You’re seriously going to stay here over break? Do you... do you not_ want _to go home or something?”_

 

 _“No, I do, but...” Takashi’s shoulders slumped forward. He pulled his feet up onto the bed, dropped his head onto his knees, and huffed out a breath. “I called my parents the other night to see about, y’know, getting a flight and all and we started talking about stuff and they started bugging me about girls and stuff and I just--” His voice caught in his throat and Adam had an idea where this might be going and hoped he was wrong. “I told them I like boys.” He made a noise that might have been a desperate little laugh. “...and I guess I just told_ you. _You want a new training partner now?”_

 

_“No.” Adam shrugged. “Why would I? I like boys too. It’s not a big deal.”_

 

_Takashi blinked at him, bewildered. “Do your parents know?”_

 

_“Well, yeah?”_

 

_“And they’re not mad?”_

 

_“Of course not! Why would they--” Adam stopped cold. Yeah, he knew exactly where this was going and he didn’t like it one bit. “Wait. Are yours mad? What’d they say when you--”_

 

_“They said I could call back when I snap out of it. Then they hung up.” Takashi shook his head and hugged his knees a little tighter. “Haven’t heard anything about a flight home so... I guess they don’t want to see me either.”_

 

 _Adam didn’t know what to say to that. Even if he did know, he wasn’t sure he could say anything._ _He felt a tight, prickly knot in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to throw up and he wanted to punch something and he_ really _wanted to hug Takashi but he wasn’t sure how well that would go over, so he didn’t. But... who still did that? Who still treated their kids like that, over something so stupid?_

 

_Suddenly, Adam wasn’t so excited about going home anymore._

 

_How could he spend a week having fun at home with his family while Takashi stayed here by himself because--because his parents didn’t want to see him?_

 

 _He couldn’t. Takashi was his friend. Adam couldn’t just leave him here for a whole week_.

 

 _Oh man... his parents were going to be pissed. They were going to be_ so _pissed. They’d probably take the cost of his ticket out of his allowance. But what else could he do? He couldn’t exactly stuff Takashi into his carry-on bag, and taking Takashi home with him was the only other option and no way would his parents go for that, even if they_ could _get another ticket on this short a notice it’d cost a freaking fortune..._

 

_“I... I just remembered something. I need to call my parents real quick,” Adam said, patting Takashi on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back, okay?”_

 

_“‘Kay.”_

 

_Adam scooted back to his side of the bathroom and dug out his phone. Dad was probably still at the school but Mom would be home. “Come on,” he said to the ringing phone, “pick up, pick up, please pick up--”_

 

_“Hi, hon!”_

 

_Oh, thank God._

 

_“Mom--you’re gonna kill me and I’m sorry, I’m really sorry but--” Adam took a deep breath. “I can’t come home for break. You can take it out of my allowance if you can’t get your money back on the plane ticket, okay, I don’t care, but I have to stay here, I can’t--”_

 

_“Adam, hon, slow down. What happened?”_

 

_Adam took another deep breath and tried to gather his racing thoughts. “Takashi--you know, the kid I was telling you about, my training partner? He came out to his parents and they--they hung up on him and they don’t want to talk to him and now he can’t go home and I can’t just leave him here by himself!”_

 

_Adam heard a gasp on the other end. “Oh my God. Oh, honey.” Mom was quiet for a long time, and when she spoke again, there was steel in her voice._

 

_“I will call you back in ten minutes. I promise I am not mad at you. Just give me ten minutes. Okay?”_

 

_“Okay.”_

 

_She hung up._

 

Oof. _Okay. She did sound mad despite saying she wasn’t, so...she probably was mad but not at_ him? _She was probably just cancelling the ticket and seeing if she could get her money back._

 

_Adam’s phone rang exactly ten minutes later._

 

_“Hon, is Takashi close by? I need to talk to him for a sec.”_

 

_Um. That came out of left field, but... “Sure, hang on--” Adam knocked on the bathroom door again, and when Takashi answered he held out the phone. “Mom... wants to talk to you?” Takashi gave him a weird look, and he just shrugged._

 

_“Um... hi, Mrs. Wolf. ...oh! Okay, Judy--”_

 

_Adam figured maybe he shouldn’t hover, but Takashi did have his phone and that was his mom he was talking to, so he settled for parking his butt on the foot of Takashi’s bed and pretending he wasn’t listening._

 

_Takashi spelled his name for her. Gave her some other information. Gave her his ID number and his phone number and--wait. Wait. Was she--_

 

_Was she really--_

 

_Adam looked up, and Takashi looked up at the same time, and they both realized exactly what she was doing._

 

_“N-no ma’am, I’ve never been to Canada... Well, um--” Takashi swallowed hard. “Just what the Garrison gave us, they give us an overcoat thing and gloves and--yes ma’am, we’re not supposed to go off base until the weekend but tomorrow we can--yes ma’am, hang on--” Takashi pulled the phone away from his ear. “Your mom says she’s putting some money in your account, can you take me to get a coat and stuff tomorrow?”_

 

_“Wh--yeah! Of course!” Holy crap. Holy crap, this was really happening. Mom was really for real doing this._

 

_Takashi’s phone made a noise then, and he picked it up and checked it. Adam saw what looked like a boarding pass on the screen. “Yes ma’am,” Takashi said, “I got it. I-I don’t know if I can pay you back, my parents are probably going to cut off my allowance so--okay, but--but I--but you didn’t have to--” He sighed, defeated, and Adam just grinned. Takashi had just learned the first rule of dealing with his family: don’t argue with Mom when she offers to pay for something. “Yes, ma’am. Okay. Thank you so much, this is--yes, ma’am. Okay. Bye.” He handed the phone back to Adam. “She wants to talk to you some more.”_

 

 _Adam took his phone back and patted Takashi on the shoulder--_ be right back, _it said, and Takashi nodded. He looked dazed, like he honestly didn’t know if this was really happening._

 

_He scooted back to his side of the bathroom doors. “Mom? Did you really just--”_

 

_“Yes, hon, I really just. Boy, we sure got lucky! The seat next to you was still open.” There was something weirdly triumphant in Mom’s voice, and Adam wasn’t about to question it._

 

_“Take it out of my allowance,” he said. “I know it cost you a fortune, okay, this short a notice--”_

 

_“Absolutely not. This is a Christmas present to your friend from me and your dad.”_

 

 _“Then give him some spending money and take_ that _out of my allowance.”_

 

_“Oh, hon... all right. We’ll talk about that when you get here, okay?” Mom said. “And when the two of you get here, we can all sit down and talk about maybe doing this every year if he wants, as long as his parents are being ...like that.”_

 

 _Every year? They could do this_ every year? _Adam’s mind raced, but he still felt kind of terrible about all of this. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean for you to go to all that trouble.”_

 

 _“Now you listen to me,” Mom said. “Don’t you_ ever _apologize to me for doing something kind for someone you care about. Do you understand me?”_

 

_Adam couldn’t quite get the answer to come out of his mouth, but somehow Mom heard it all the same._

 

_“You take your friend out tomorrow and get him a good coat and some nice warm clothes and we’ll see you in a couple of days. I love you and I am so proud of you right now.”_

 

_Adam swallowed hard. “Love you too, Mom.”_

 

_They hung up._

 

_Adam pulled up the weather forecast for Calgary for the week and grinned. Snow for the first three days they’d be there. Perfect. “Hey!” he yelled, banging on Takashi’s door again, “Open up!”_

 

_The door opened again. Takashi still looked like he had no idea what the hell was going on._

 

_“Okay, so...” Adam said, pulling Takashi back over to sit on the bed. “Does it snow where you’re from, or nah?”_

 

_“Um. Sometimes?” Takashi laughed. “A little?”_

 

_“Define ‘a little.’ Like, how long does it take you to shovel the sidewalk?”_

 

_Takashi gave him the weirdest, blankest stare. “To... do what?”_

 

_“You know... shovel the snow off it.”_

 

 _“We don’t?” Takashi shrugged. “One time it snowed a lot and they had to put some sand on it, but... shovel!?_ ”

 

 _“Oh, buddy.” Adam clapped Takashi on the shoulder. The phrase_ sweet summer child _floated through his mind, and he laughed heartily. This was going to be_ so much fun. _“Okay, so... first you’re gonna need to know how to make snowballs...”_

 

* * *

 

It was dark out now, and through the living room windows Adam could see the lights come on under the snow and in the pond. It was even more magical in person.

 

Tomorrow they’d go out somewhere for dinner--maybe after the powwow, they’d go to that diner. Takashi would like that. Ever since he got his clean bill of health he’d been chugging coffee and eating all the spicy and/or greasy stuff he’d had to cut out before like he was making up for lost time. God, it was hard enough to get the man to eat a vegetable once in a while to begin with... well, after what he’d been through, he sure as hell deserved a few greasy cheeseburgers. But for tonight, they sat in the living room with their hot cocoa and a nice fire in the fireplace and watched the snow come down.

 

Eventually Mom and Dad let Dust Mop in and put the cat in the garage and went off to bed, leaving Adam and Takashi in the living room. Dust Mop must have finally worked all the excitement out of his system; he lay curled up in a fluffy ball in Dad’s chair, occasionally chasing squirrels or something in his sleep.

 

“So, uh... no guest bed this time, huh?” Takashi said as casually as he could. “I can sleep on the couch if you--”

 

“You don’t have to do that.” Adam snuggled up against his side. “Not the first time we’ve shared a bed.”

 

“True.” They had the inside lights off, and the lights from the backyard and the glow from the fireplace cast multicolored shadows all over the living room and caught in Takashi’s white hair in the most amazing ways. “It’ll be nice having a bed warmer, too.” He kissed the side of Adam’s head.

 

Adam thought about the three little treasures in his pocket for a while. Then he pulled them out and showed them to Takashi. “You remember this stuff?”

 

Takashi breathed out a soft laugh. “Of course I do.” He picked up the little plastic fighter jet. “That’s from the diner, I got it out of a machine for you...” Then the little stone wolf. “And one of your mom’s friends gave me that at a powwow while you and your dad were dancing... and _this..._ ” And finally, the squished penny. “This is from our first date. That all sound about right to you?”

 

“Exactly right.” Adam let out a sigh of relief and tucked the little items back into his pocket. “So... you spent winter breaks up here with me on this side too, huh.”

 

“And spring breaks. Yeah.” Takashi combed his fingers through Adam’s hair. “Ever since our first year at the academy.”

 

It still made Adam want to throw up, or punch something, or hug Takashi. But at least now he knew how hugging Takashi would go over, so he did that. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into the side of Takashi’s head.

 

“Don’t be. It’s their problem. Not yours.”

 

“Have you talked to them since...”

 

“Just the one time after I got back.” Takashi shook his head. He was quiet for a while. “After you came back I decided until _they’re_ ready to pick up the damn phone for once, I’m done with them. I’m tired of yelling at a brick wall and I just... I’ve got more important things to worry about.” He tucked Adam’s head under his chin. “I told the therapist about that. Asked her if she thought I was being too hard on them.”

 

Adam smirked a little. “What’d she say?” As if he didn’t already have some idea.

 

“Well, for one thing...I didn’t know therapists could say ‘fuck.’” Takashi snorted a little laugh into the top of Adam's head. “Long story short, she said no. Go ahead. Say ‘I told you so.’”

 

“Not gonna do that.” Adam shut his eyes and relaxed into Takashi’s arms. Maybe his parents still couldn’t get their shit together, but at least Takashi was finally starting to realize that their approval or lack thereof wasn’t a measure of his worth as a man, and that was a big step.

 

“I’m glad we came up here,” Takashi whispered, and Adam stretched up to kiss him.

 

\---

 

_They were twenty-six and snuggled close together in that double bed, Takashi on his back with his flesh-and-blood arm around Adam’s waist and Adam draped over him, one ear pressed to his chest. Takashi had fallen asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillows. Adam lay there awake a while longer, watching the glowing stars on his old ceiling fade into the darkness, watching the snow fall outside his window and listening to the strong, steady beat of Takashi’s heart under his ear._

 

_They had both been through hell and had the scars, physical and otherwise, to prove it. They had lost each other for what by all rights should have been forever. They had both died--Takashi had died twice, in fact, once in Adam’s reality and once here--and somehow, by an amazing series of accidental miracles and messed-up coincidences, somehow they had found each other again. And this time, they both intended to never let each other go again._

 

_They still had a lot of work to do and a lot of battles to fight and a long, hard road ahead of them._

 

_But for now they were home and safe and together in a warm bed while the falling snow slowly erased their footprints in the backyard._

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I think I'm gonna write that cute and very short bit about Adam going home and bellyflopping into the snow in front of reporters
> 
> Me, 17K words later: oh no


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